On the sidelines of our Heads of FIUs meeting recently held in Harare, Zimbabwe, the AML-CFT ESCAY Project also organised its Steering Committee Meeting.
For this meeting, we invited representatives of different national, regional and international institutions and partner agencies including: Financial Intelligence Units represented by the Head of FIU Zimbabwe, esaamlg org secretariat, the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa, (Groupe intergouvernemental d’action contre le blanchiment d’argent en Afrique de l’Ouest (GIABA) Secretariat; Law enforcement agencies represented by Southern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation (SARPCCO) Secretariat who also represented Interpol Regional Bureau for South Africa; Asset recovery agencies represented by Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network for East Africa (ARIN-EA); Regional Economic Communities represented by Southern Africa Development Cooperation (SADC); GIZ Global office from Bonn and GIZ Eastern and Southern Africa office; European Commission represented by DG INTPA; CIVIPOL ; French Ministry of Interior and Expertise France
This Steering committee meeting was convened to review the mid-term progress of our AML-CFT ESCAY Project, to discuss its achievements, limitations, lessons learnt and future priority areas of support in fighting TOC, IFFs and ML/TF. The meeting also provided an opportunity to present, discuss and share recommendations with regards to a forthcoming AML/CFT programme that the European Union, in conjunction with several EU Member States, is diligently preparing.
Representing the European Commission at the meeting, Nina Krotov Sand reiterated that fighting IFFs should go beyond security concerns and aim to contribute to development and democracy; which would require political and strategic commitments from both Africa and EU. She committed that a new project under preparation will be launched soon in support of Sub-Saharan African countries as part of the EU-Africa Partnership initiative.
